USA TODAY Article - Sidewalks? Not in my front yard

[Flying Monkeys]

The rail industry is playing catch up. A lot of shippers say it takes to long to move it from port to rail to truck... they like the port to truck option. This is due to just-in-time type stocking philosophies and the highly volatile American trends in what’s hot and what’s not (don't stock too many pet rocks... might not sell tomorrow).

Even with rail stepping up... our freight movement forecasts for via truck are through the roof....


And about the streets selected…. Americans tend to try to apply new philosophies to all things equally….it may be a throwback to the FORD assembly line mentality that we have used for so long. Many times we have people requesting to put a major truck route on a ‘road diet’. They figure if it is good for the neighborhood streets then etc….

[slimwhitman]

A funny article

[stroskey]

We tried to put in sidewalks last year. One gentleman's argument against installing a sidewalk on his block was "No one walks in my lawn so they won't walk on my sidewalk". We counted about 37 people walking in the street on his block one afternoon.

Where we live it snows in the winter and we require homeowners with sidewalks to shovel within 24 hours after a snow. I can see the frustration with that because the city owns the sidewalks so why should the individual homeowner be responsible for maintaining them? I suppose it's either that or raise taxes to hire union snow plowers to go around shoveling sidewalks.

[jmello]

We can't build enough sidewalks here to keep the residents happy. We get far more requests for sidewalks than we have money to build them. Our recently adopted pedestrian plan identifies over 450 miles of need.

All new residential subdivisions and non-residential developments are required to install sidewalks along all frontages.

[transguy]

The idea that sidewalks attract and promote crime is utterly ridiculous and detracts from the main issue, transit. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that criminals (read poor people) can’t live in our community. Now the government is literally trying to bus them in. And if that weren’t enough, now they are building rail lines to try and make the service even faster. This is the real issue we need to focus on.

– PLEASE NOTE EXTREMEM SARCASM –

We need to unite the anti-transit and anti-sidewalk people (someone could take the bus, and then use the sidewalk right up to my house!) for a truly effective movement against these power hungry planners.

[fringe]

Our City Council amended subdivision regs last year to require sidewalks in residential developments.

Last year in our neighboring county several pedestrians were "picked off" by vehicles as the walkers struggled to walk on narrow, rough, litter strewn "shoulders". The drivers in more than one incident did not even slow down, much less stop to help.

The automobile allows people to revert to the status of sharks in a tank as they "strive" to get thru their day.